Theo looked up as a dramatic hush swept through the Great Hall to see his younger brother dragging his older brother into the hall behind him like an overgrown rag-doll.  The Gryffindors seemed to draw back in a wave as they approached the far end of the table, which rolled along the benches as they progressed along the hall.

"Here," said Simon, thrusting Harry forward into Theo's hastily raised arms.  "You deal with him."

Theo took one look at Harry's dazed appearance and turned back to his red-headed brother.

"What did you do to him?" he demanded.  Simon glared at him in response.

"I didn't do anything to him!"

"Then what did you say?" Theo continued suspiciously.

"Nothing!"  He made to move away to where Dennis and his other friends were sitting only to be jerked backwards when Theo grabbed his arm.

"Sit down and explain."

"There's nothing to explain," Simon complained as he dropped onto the seat next to Theo, which had been hastily vacated by a couple of third years, pulling Harry down between them.

"Then why - ?"

"Don't."

Both boys stared.

"Harry?" Ginny spoke gently, and green eyes slowly raised to meet Theo's.

"Don't fight."

Further down the table Ron snorted.  "Don't fight'?  This from the guy who flattened Nev and his dad in class?"  He'd been speaking to Dean and Seamus, but his voice carried clearly in the hushed circle that surrounded the Potters.

Theo eyed Harry carefully, noting the half-flinch he tried to conceal as Ron spoke.

"That was an accident," he cut in hastily before anyone else could reply.  "Right, Simon?"  Simon blinked twice before Theo's intentions sunk in.

"That's right," he declared, glaring at Ron for good measure.  Dean took the hint and elbowed Ron before the red-head said any more, but the damage - whatever it was - had already been done.  Harry's already pale face had gone pasty-white at the comment, and Theo was at something of a loss as to how to deal with a reaction that was so very different from what Simon's would be.  Ginny came to his rescue.

"Ignore them," she said, smiling reassuringly across the table at Harry.  "We all know you didn't mean to hurt anyone."

Harry stared at her for a heartbeat, then started to laugh.

Theo shuddered at the unexpected sound, and found himself - along with everyone else in the Great Hall - staring at Harry as his laughter echoed through the hall like newly broken glass.  He glanced over Harry's head to see Simon gazing at Harry with a peculiar expression of alarm.

"Can somebody please call St Mungo's?  He's definitely not flying with all his twigs intact," Simon muttered under his breath.

"Simon," Theo hissed, a little too late, as Harry turned his attention back towards the youngest Potter.

"Been there, done that," he informed him softly, with a bitter twist to his lips.  "I couldn't believe Ron was - "  He broke off abruptly, his expression falling into stiff blankness, his eyes fixed sightlessly on the empty plate in front of him.

The Gryffindors closest to him eyed him carefully.

"Was what?" the Weasley in question demanded.

"Dead, right?" Simon answered for Harry.  Theo kicked him under the table.  "What, just 'cause I'm finally beginning to understand Harry-speak - "

Ron forced a laugh as Theo glared Simon into silence.  "Yeah, right," he said.  "What about me, really?"

Harry didn't answer, remaining silent with his head bowed.  The Gryffindors around them started to mutter amongst themselves.

"Hey, I asked you - "

"Drop it, Ron," Thoe interjected.

"But he - "

"What is going on here?" Hermione inquired archly as she stalked up behind Ron.

"How's Neville?" Ginny piped up before anyone else could put their foot in it; yet it was still the wrong thing to say as far as Harry was concerned.  He sprang up out of his seat and scurried out of the Great Hall.

Theo exchanged a glance with Ginny, before flicking his eyes up to the head table.  His parents and Dumbledore were still absent.  Beside him  -

"Don't even think of pinning this one on me," Simon informed him grumpily, his arms folded over his chest.

Dragging a protesting Simon by the elbow, he hurried after Harry, almost running into him where he stood stock-still in the Entrance Hall.  Harry jerked away from the contact, green eyes blinking up at him wildly.

"Harry?" he spoke softly, trying to imitate Ginny's earlier tone of voice.

"I don't know where to go," Harry admitted in a strained voice.   "I'm tired.  I want to sleep.  But I can't go back to the dorm.  That bed.  That's Ron's bed.  Where Ron's bed should be.  If they hadn't taken it away."

There was a horrible sinking feeling in Theo's stomach as he realised -

"You mean I was right?"  Simon's words were half-strangled.  "I didn't think - "

Harry laughed.  It sounded far too much like crying, to Theo's ears.

"It wasn't just Ron," Harry informed them.  "It was - " his mouth twisted as though trying desperately to say the words, but yet somehow unable to make a sound.

"I think," Theo pronounced slowly, carefully, "we should take this somewhere more private, like Mum and Dad's quarters."

Harry visibly stiffened.

"Listen, they care about you - "

"They shouldn't!" Harry burst out desperately - and the ground began to shake.

"Hey!"  Simon shouted as he struggled to keep to his feet.  "Stop that!"

From within the Hall proper, cries of alarm sounded.

Theo grabbed Harry by both shoulders, locking gazes with him.

"You can't stop us caring about you!  In fact, you're only making us more concerned by not talking to us!  And tossing the castle around like a hot potato is not going to help you!"

Harry closed his eyes, bit his lip - and the tremors subsided.

"And you lot say I'm trouble," Simon half-grumbled, half-admired as he peered back into the Hall where the professors were trying to restore order.

Theo kept his gaze on Harry, ignoring all other distractions.  At last, the older boy's eyes cracked open, a glint of green visible before being hidden behind his fringe as he bowed his head.

"I need to talk to Dumbledore," he admitted at last.

"Right," Theo agreed, and led the way.
 

"This is important, Mum."

James blinked bemusedly as Theo ushered his brother into the Headmaster's office, and again as Harry headed straight for Lily's favourite stop - Albus' liquor cabinet.

"What do you think you're doing?" Lily cried as he poured himself a generous glass of whisky and downed it.

"Drowning my sorrows."  He helped himself to a second glass, which he sipped at more conservatively.

"Just what makes you think whisky is going to help?" she demanded, every inch the outraged mother.

"I'd prefer port, but that doesn't seem to be available."

"Your mother finished it off."

"James!"

"Where on earth did you get a taste for port?" James wondered.

"Professor Snape."

"Severus Snape?"

"He what?"

"He introduced me to my first hangover after Dumbledore was killed."

Silence.

"That was last year, I think.  Or the year before.  The months started to run into each other after a while."

"Perhaps," Dumbledore suggested calmly from his seat behind his desk, "you would like to start at the beginning."

Harry's laughter was brittle.  "I wouldn't like to start at all," he answered, and James could see his hands tremble as he raised the glass to his mouth once more.

Lily started forward, but James caught her arm, shaking his head.  "Just let him talk," he murmured, pulling her close.  Green eyes considered him for a moment before settling on Harry.  He fidgeted under their eyes, fiddling with his glass before setting it on the side table.

"The beginning," he said, darting quick glances around the room from beneath his untidy fringe as he slid into an armchair.  "I guess for me the beginning was the night Voldemort killed my parents.  But it wasn't that.  I mean, yes, their deaths changed my life horribly, but the worst bit was something else.  See, he tried to kill me, too. Avada Kedavra.  Only it didn't work.  It bounced back at him, left him bodiless and gave me this scar."  He lifted his fringe, indicated the curse scar Lily had noted before.

James felt ill.  He had been right after all, and that meant  -

"James," Lily hissed quietly, digging her nails into his arms.  He forced his nausea down, and refocused on what Harry was saying.

"No one was ever really able to explain why it happened like that.  Most people didn't care.  Voldemort was gone, and that was that.  Only it wasn't, because he wasn't dead.  Didn't really have much of a life, either, but he wasn't gone completely.

"My first year at Hogwarts, he possessed the Defense professor, Quirrell.  Eventually he was driven out, but..." he trailed off, an odd expression on his face.

"What is it, Harry?" Lily prompted quietly.

"I just realised," he said.  "Quirrell was the first person I ever killed."

James felt more than heard Lily's gasp.

"I didn't mean to." James could easily hear the guilt in his voice.  "He just crumbled away beneath my hands..."

"Go on, Harry," Dumbledore pressed after a moment.  Harry visibly collected himself before continuing.

"During my fourth year, one of his followers found him and helped him with a spell to regain his body.  Bone of the father, flesh of the servant, blood of the enemy."  He looked questioningly at the Headmaster, who nodded in reply.

"From what we have been able to determine, he used a similar spell in this world."

"Except in this world he didn't have my blood."

Lily's nails dug into James once again.

"In our world," Dumbledore stated cautiously, " the blood donor did not survive Voldemort's attentions."

"There was a portkey.  It brought me and Cedric's body back to Hogwarts."

"Cedric?" Lily questioned hesitantly.

"Cedric Diggory."

James nodded slightly, recognising the name as that of a former student.  He hadn't lived much longer in this world, his family becoming victims of the Death Eaters shortly after Voldemort's resurgence.

"Over the next year he began attacking muggle supporters in the wizarding world, quietly at first, but people began to take sides and it split the community in half.  He attacked the Dursleys' home to get to me, but something strange happened to the wards the Headmaster had set up, and he died.  Dumbledore, that is, not Voldemort.  After that, our side started falling apart.  Surprisingly, it was Sirius and Snape who held everything together."

James started at the mention of his best friend's name.  "Sirius?" he whispered.  "He's alive in your world?"  One look at Harry's expression answered him negatively.

"Last year - " he closed his eyes, swallowing briefly.  "Voldemort managed to get hold of my best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.  I have - I have these visions sometimes.  Not the Sight," he answered the question before it was asked, "not really.  It's just - I can see what Voldemort is doing.  Sometimes.  And he found out.  I saw what he did to them.  I couldn't stop seeing.  I don't know how long it went on for, but Sirius tried to get them out.  He and Ron were killed.  At least Sirius died quickly.  Hermione - I knew I had to get her out of there.  And I did."

"The same way you got Remus out," James guessed, pieces of the puzzle sliding into place.  Lily shot a startled glance at him

"Yes."

"You apparated him through the Death Eater's wards."

Harry shrugged.  "I guess so."

"That's supposed to be impossible, you know," James tried to keep his tone light.  Harry only looked at him wearily.

"I am the impossible, it seems."

There was nothing he could say to that.

"They put me in St Mungo's for a bit after that.  With Hermione.  Then the Death Eaters attacked."

"Malfoy," James spoke, realisation sweeping through him as he recalled his earlier vision.  "He - Hermione - "  He shook his head in sympathy.  "I'm sorry."

Green eyes stared at him glassily.  "I killed him for it.  Slit his throat with the same knife."

James nodded.  "I understand."  After all, he would do the same, as the vision had indicated.  Lily squeezed his arm, nodding in agreement.  They were silent as Harry blinked the excess moisture away from his eyes.

"He almost had us then.  We were only just holding on to Hogwarts.  Then he managed to drive us out by poisoning the air within the castle.  People were dying even as they ran out of the doors and straight into Voldemort's forces."

James felt Lily shudder in his arms.  Too close - it was too close to her work wit Remus.  He prayed desperately that this world would not parallel Harry's in this instance.

"He'd forced us to make a last stand - fight or die.  So we fought.  The Death Eaters just kind of herded me towards him, because he wanted to kill me himself.  Still held a grudge that I'd caused him so much grief." He snorted softly.

"Before Dumbledore died, he'd told me that he knew why I was different, why I'd survived.  He said he was going to help me understand.  Only he died." He glanced across to the Headmaster briefly, then back down at his hands.  "When I faced Voldemort that time, I'd almost given up.  He'd caused so much pain.  It seemed like it would never end until he'd had enough.  So I gave him what he wanted.  I gave him power.  He couldn't handle it.

"I couldn't handle it."

He drew a deep breath and met each of their eyes in turn.

"I destroyed everything.  I couldn't control what happened."  He shook his head helplessly.  "I hardly know what happened.  I only know - it's all my fault."
 

*** *** ***
 

His nose twitched involuntarily at the stench of blood soaking the central figures on the stone dais.  The dark colours hid the stains from sight, but sticky and stiffened with the drying liquid, their robes plastered awkwardly against their bodies.  As he watched, Lestrange brushed at a patch over her breast, absent-mindedly licking the ruddy colour from her fingers.  He shuddered even as Malfoy smiled beside her, lifting her hand to his own lips.

"Well, my children?" the Dark Lord prompted the pair, who immediately bowed their heads and bent their knees.

"My son has accepted, my lord.  Everything is in place."

"And Potter?" the older wizard pressed.

"If you please, my lord," Lestrange smiled winsomely up at their master.  "Allow me to deal with that one.  He will not trouble you further."

Red eyes regarded her curiously - and with a challenging light.

"Do not disappoint me," he cautioned.  She bowed obediently, and he turned to the last of his Trio, still hooded and masked.  Try as he might, Peter could not discern the words that passed between the pair, only perceiving an indistinct whisper.  Yet the Dark Lord's smile spoke eloquently enough.

"My faithful servants," he addressed his inner circle, who gather closer at his words.  "The time is almost at hand when I will assume my rightful place as Lord Protector of the wizarding world.  That fool Dumbledore will learn at last how powerful I have become - and he will know fear.  All the world will bow to my will, securing the future of our blood.  Soon, very soon now we will move not only against those in the ministry who continue to thwart me, but against the very root of our problems.  We shall cleanse the tainted blood from Hogwarts' halls, once and for all, and prepare the way for a new generation of pureblooded wizards."

Swiftly he allocated groups of Death Eaters to their assigned targets - and named the day.  Peter almost squeaked, wide-eyed and momentarily stunned senseless.  Then, as the Dark Lord began to laugh, dismissing his followers with a gesture, he scampered away as fast as his legs could carry him, knowing all the while that he would never be able to run fast or far enough.
 

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